Following on the heels of their Xbox 360 Arcade announcement, Microsoft continues to look for ways to make the home of Halo 3 a touch more family-friendly. Today the company introduced the Xbox 360 Family Timer, which lets parents control the amount that their children play games on a daily or weekly basis.

"As a leader in interactive entertainment, it has been our priority to innovate and improve our Family Settings technology to help parents worldwide manage their children's video gaming and online experiences," said Microsoft's corporate vice president of Global Marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business, Jeff Bell, in a release issued this morning.

I would suggest that Microsoft's positioning of the Xbox as a more family-friendly console is an attempting to level the playing field a bit with the runaway success that is the Wii, but the company totally shot down that sentiment when I suggested it at the Xbox 360 Arcade briefing, so who am I to flog a dead gaming horse, right?

The Family Timer is available for download today, via Xbox Live, for users in 26 countries--the full list of which can be viewed here.